Gamemodes
Pico Tanks has 3 game modes, Hold the Flag, Fetch the Cargo and Team Death Match. Each game mode has specific maps which determine the game mode. Hold the Flag is currently the most common game mode as It as 3 maps to Fetch the Cargo and Team Death Match's 1 one each. The ideal composition is: * A medic/healer with the Medic or Repair Arc as weapon, something fast like the Quadcopter as body and using Repair Abilities. * 2 high damage dealers with the Helix or the Cannon (Use the Helix to control choke points as it reloads fast and does a lot of damage) use the Classic as the body as it has a high energy capacity and armor and have the bubble shield and land mine equipped in the ability slot as the land mine at level 1 can do 2000 damage for only 2 energy allowing you to have a stable control of the middle and help guard the rear. If you are playing solo or without a healer you will want to swap the land mine with the repair pack ability as staying alive is more important than getting in the land mine damage. Hold the Flag Work together as a team to capture and hold the flag to score points and win the battle! The team who has the most points by the end of the timer will win. There can be no draws in this game mode as overtime will always continue if the losing team holds the flag. There is currently 3 Hold the Flag maps, Grassy Gully, Mystic Mines, and Windy Woods, in rotation, making it the most common game mode. Strategy (Against real players) The general strategy for Hold the Flag is too control the middle, prioritize keeping the flag bearer alive and to just run if your teammates are dead so they have time to respawn. A good way to get some damage in fast is to shoot when you are approaching the flag towards the enemy, since they will be moving forward you can usually hit them first. If you are going to secure a position to defend from try do it at your near your teams spawn location as the controls won't cover a portion of the map, your fingers can't block your view of enemies and it provides more drag space than dragging down against the bottom of the screen. Remember to not rush headfirst into a group of enemies as that will lead to a quick death and have your team at a disadvantage. When trying to seize the flag off the enemy team try to use weapons with a longer range and pick them off, peeking around corners and shooting first. A useful tactic is to shield rush, which is to deploy the bubble shield and quickly get up close and deal out a lot of damage with the auto aim attack, doing this can catch an opponent unprepared and can lead to a quick kill, giving your team the numbers advantage to attack or hold. Using the ideal team composition works best on Mystic Mines and Windy Woods due to their huge choke points where you can slap down a mine and shoot down a line. For Grassy Gully you should swap out the land mine for the turret for its mobile damage or keep the land mine and place it on the tree choke point going down the side, the tree choke point isn't as good as the other choke points on the other maps as the middle is still wide open and there are two of them. This strategy works best on Grassy Gully and Mystic Mines but needs a little tweak for Windy Woods. Due to the spawn and flag location being so close together and the barriers and trees on the side of the main road that runs through the map it creates a choke point at the very beginning. A good idea is to cruise sideways across the main road while shooting down the choke into the incoming enemies. Since the spawns are so close together, rushing in for the flag is nearly suicidal and due to the mass of projectiles being fired into a small zone can cause frame rate drops. What is best is to clear out the enemies first then grab the flag and retreat to behind the wooden barriers. Keep fighting down the choke you know control as the enemy is forced to come to you. Once the barriers have been destroyed it is a good idea to backup to the rock behind the spawn as it has a small health pack and provides cover that you can peek and shoot around. Retrieving the flag from the enemy team can be difficult on this mass due to the choke point so the best thing is to destroy it. The earlier you break the barriers the easier access you have to the enemy team. Use the cover provided by the trees to approach as the flag bearer cannot hide in trees. You can then use the strategy aligned above now as the distinctive difference on Windy Woods has been changed. Strategy (Against bots) Since bots aren't the smartest and have no clue how to use their abilities we can exploit that. The best way to bust a choke is to shield rush and since bots don't know how to do this we can. When holding the flag maximize the choke point of the middle, keep shooting down it, stopping the bots from advancing. The bots can sometimes come at you all at once but it can be countered easily with an ability like bubble shield or an airstrike. When the bots hold the flag they will like to keep moving and not take advantage of the choke point, leaving them open to be rushed. Bots can only use the auto aim attack so as long as you keep moving sideways you can avoid their projectiles. Fetch the Cargo Drive up the cargo and tap the hook button to connect your tank. Drag the cargo down to your teams drop off point to score. Tap the hook button while connected to the cargo to disconnect. Be aware that you can’t fire or deploy abilities while connected to the cargo. First team to secure 2 cargo shipments or whichever team has the most secured cargo shipments wins! There is currently only 1 Fetch the Cargo map, Shipping Yard, in rotation. Strategy Do not grab the cargo immediately, instead try to kill as many of the enemies around the cargo or get your teammates to push the enemies back by pushing aggressively forward. Secure the cargo once the enemies are dead or it is clear enough to sneakily move the cargo closer to the drop-off. Use the cargo as cover from enemy fire by pulling it towards you while staying behind it. If your health is low drop a health pack down before connecting to the cargo so you can pick up the health pack, you can do this as well to the person who is pulling the cargo if you are not. It is vitally important that you do not die as it gives the enemy time to pull the cargo shipment further away from your teams drop-off point. Once the cargo has been pulled into position it takes a few seconds before it is secured and in that time you can hook the cargo to your tank and pull it off the secure point. If the game is below 60 seconds remaining and the enemy team is down 1 it is wise to not try and secure the cargo and instead keep the cargo in the middle and kill the enemy tanks, doing this makes the enemy at a disadvantage as they must pull the cargo and have the debuffs from pulling applied. Team Death Match Destroy the enemy tanks to score points for your team and win the battle! The first team to reach 15 kills or most kills in 2 minutes wins. There is currently only 1 Team Death Match map, Cargo Cove, in rotation. Strategy On Team Death Match you want to be moving fast as a group and targeting tanks, always watch out for respawning players. If you are playing bots a healer on this game mode is not needed as this mode is fast pace killing and all the more fire power is needed to quickly kills the bots who can't use abilities. When facing players who can use healing and abilities a healer is more viable to run but can become and easy target for the enemy. It is important to use repair packs as they are a quick source of healing allowing you to get back into fighting. In this mode you want to only engage if you can land a killing blow or have the numbers so that you can ensure the kill and not get a point against your team. As always if you find yourself in a situation where you are outnumbered either try to push your way out with a shield push or try and take down as many as possible so that your teammates can come in and get kills. On Cargo Cove because of the containers lying around everywhere it creates the perfect environment for shooting around corners or shooting forward/ahead of moving players who are going around a corner. Speed isn't very important for this game mode as you need armor and energy over speed. Category:Browse Category:Hold the Flag Category:Fetch the Cargo Category:Team Death Match